AS the global economy struggles through a slow and painful recovery, governments around the world are wasting billions of dollars on unnecessary information technology. This problem has worsened in recent years because of what I call the "I.T. cartel." This powerful group of private contractors encourages reliance on inefficient software and hardware that is expensive to acquire and to maintain.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has taken a major step toward opening its electronic health record system to open source development.

The Web portal, where collaborative development on the electronic health record system will take place officially launched last week, and developers who are interested in contributing to the project can start signing up.

The Homeland Security Department has made big strides since it was created eight years ago, but still has some big management hurdles to overcome, according to an assessment released by the Government Accountability Office to mark the 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.